Welcome to the Hog Blog, a blog chronicling minor-league baseball in the Lehigh Valley. Tom Housenick, The Morning Call's IronPigs beat writer, has been at The Morning Call since 2008. In a previous lifetime, he was at Lackawanna County Stadium in Moosic talking with future Phillies Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Shane Victorino and Ryan Howard, among many others.
He’ll now be spending his summers in search of who the Phillies are hoping to be the next Chase Utley and Cole Hamels plus any outfielder who catch and hit. What he really hopes to find are the next Mariano Rivera, Todd Helton and Jim Thome --- great human beings who happened to be great at this sport.
He spent the last five years covering Colonial League football, college basketball and high school track & field.

For the first time in their six-year history, the IronPigs have two players on the post-season International League All-Star team.

Third baseman Cody Asche and second baseman Cesar Hernandez were named to the 12-player squad that also features two players from the Souther Division champion Durham Bulls.

"Oh good, that's nice," IronPigs manager Dave Brundage, who also voted for Asche as rookie of the year (which went to Rochester's Chris Colabello). "Good for both of them."

Both were also selected to play for the IL in the mid-season Triple-A all-star game, although Hernandez was pulled so he could play center field in Reading for three days.

Asche hit .295 with 24 doubles, four triples, 16 homers, 68 RBI, 11 steals and an .837 OPS in 104 games before being promoted to the Phillies in late July.

Hernandez ranks third in the IL with a .319 average in 99 games, with a league-leading (and club record) nine triples, 33 RBI and 31 steals to go with a ..383 on-base percentage and an .800 OPS. Hernandez also spent two weeks with the Phillies in June, hitting .250 in 28 at-bats.

Colabello, hitting .a league-best .352 with 24 homers and 76 RBI in only 89 games, was named the league's Most Valuable Player in addition to the top rookie and all-star first baseman.

Martin, who is 15-4 with a 284 ERA, was named the top pitcher and Durham's Charlie Montoyo the manager of the year for the second time in four years.

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The experiment to increase Hernandez's versatility took him to right field Tuesday night for the first time in his career. He had made 17 of his previous 23 starts in center field after playing second base exclusively through July 4.

The plan, Brundage said, is to have Hernandez play both corner spots over the last week of the season.

"If you can play center, you can play the other two," Brundage said.

The in-season negotiations and eventual re-signing of second baseman Chase Utley led the Phillies to consider other options for Hernandez as far back as early June, when he started taking fly balls in early work and during batting practice.

The organization has requested a fourth option year for the 23-year-old, who was been on the 40-man roster since the winter of 2010-11. A Phillies official said Major League Baseball is considering the request and the organization is optimistic it will be granted.

"We don't know where Cesar's going to play," Brundage said. "Getting him reps in left and right and cetner and at seocnd gives us more options, gives him more options."

Brundage said discussions have also been held about trying Hernandez at third base or shortstop but added that the transition to those positions is tougher to do in-season.

"Center field is a little different than playing shortstop," Brundage said. "It's on the other side of the diamond than he's used to, and there's a lot of repercussions at shortstop. There's a lot of different intangibles to playing shortstop than the outfield."

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Outfielder Tyson Gillies was not in the line-up again Tuesday, the fifth straight game he's missed with what Brundage called a "leg" injury, although he didn't use the dreaded H-word -- hamstring.

Gillies' tenure in the Phillies organization has been marred by hamstring injuries.

"He's just banged up a little bit," Brundage said, calling him day-to-day. "He was just having some trouble playing through it."

Although the 24-year-old outfielder is only 1-for-13 over his last four games, Gillies is hitting .279 in August, raising his average to as high as .229 before the slide dropped it down to .220.

"He was swinging the bat, playing some good defense," Brundage said.

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Five days ago David 'Buchanan allowed four hits and a run over six innings in his third win in four games at Buffalo.

Tuesday, he faced that same Bisons line-up, and Brundage was asked what adjustments the 24-year-old might have to make.

"I think they're going to have to make the adjustments," he said, referring to Buffalo. "Aside from the first inning, he was pretty steady. You stay with the same game plan, you stay with what was working and and make them make the adjustments, and if they do, then we make the adjustments." :

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So far in August, the IronPigs' .284 team batting average is 23 points higher than the next closes team. They also have a 2.70 team ERA, second-lowest in the month to Norfolk's 2.21 mark.

But Lehigh Valley's 14-11 record so far is only fifth-best in the league. Pawtucket and Norfolk, both 16-9, have the best records this month.

"There's really nothing you can put your finger on," Brundage said. "I think there's maybe two games this month we haven't been in, where we were out of it."

Brundage noted the IronPigs lack-of-run production so far -- they've scored two runs or fewer in eight game (they've lost all eight) and three in four others (they're 4-0 in those games).

"There's games that we kind of kick ourselves saying that's a tough loss, we lost 2-0, we lost 2-1, we lost 3-2. We haven't won those games in a while," Brundage said. "I'd venture to say we haven't scored a tremendous amount of runs in August, so batting average doesn't always equate to runs. There's been times I've looked up and saw we had nine hits and only one run."

Lehigh Valley has scored just 93 runs in 25 games this month, an average of only 3.7 per game.

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The only unit that hit on the field for either team prior to Tuesday's game was the IronPigs' pitchers.

Reportedly, Greg Smith was asked by a teammate asking why the pitchers got to take BP.

"We've throwin 12 shutouts, we can do what we want," Smith reportedly answered.

Brundage said the pitchers are entitled to one "hitter's" BP per shutout.

"Then they started piling up real fast, and it was like, 'I don't think we're going to get 12 BPs in,'" Brundage said with a laugh.

Lehigh Valley's 12 shutouts are tied with Louisville and Scranton for the league lead, and is the third straight season the staff has reached that number. Sunday's 7-0 win at Buffalo was the first since a 10-0 whitewash at Pawtucket on July 27, and eight of them came between May 31 and July 3.

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.A two-person crew from Yellville Productions in New York circulated throughout Coca-Cola Park Tuesday night, gathering information and looking into the possibility of producing a future reality show based on the day-to-day operations of the IronPigs front office.

Julie Harman, a Yellville partner and executive producer, said a recent front-page Wall Street Journal story on last week's funeral promotion caught her eye.